A Quick and Easy Supper... Potatoes with Kale Pesto

Today began with Stella (our alarm horse) sounding off, letting us know something was amiss! One of the bull calves escaped. There had been interest in Thor as a breeder, so he is “intact”, big mistake. He is an adventurous troublemaker. Before breakfast Nigel and I were out there chasing after the bull and locking him up in Stella’s stall where, we believe, he definitely can not escape. Getting him wrangled created quite a scene with our milking cows and as it turns out Helen-May is in heat and went crazy breaking out of her fence. Did the “cowgirl” thing and got her situated for milking and our day went on from there. As I was just getting dinner started Cameron saw one of the cows (Helen of course!) out behind the house. Quickly turned the cookers off, got the boots on and out the door! With Cam’s help we chased her around for a while, and finally got her locked up in the milking barn; made sure she had food and water, fed the calves, the horse and Ginger, our other milker, then went back inside to cook dinner. This is the rat race on the farm and dinner was late again:)

Wash potatoes well, and cut into large cubes. Heat good oil in a skillet, I used 1/3 lb of chopped bacon that I started cooking while I was chopping the potatoes. Add one onion, diced, stir and cook until onion is glassy. Add the potatoes and cook on medium high heat stirring often so they don’t stick to the pan. When the potatoes are at least halfway cooked you can throw in some sliced or diced summer squash. Cook until everything is done. Serve with Kale Pesto, fast, easy and delicious, even after cow wrangling! Serves 5

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Remove stems from leaves, save the stems for vegetable stock or some other purpose. Cook the Kale in simmering water for a good 2 minutes, remove with tongs or a slotted spoon, let drain. Put the garlic cloves, peel on, in the water and boil for 2 minutes. Once the garlic has cooled you can easily slide the peel off. Put the kale, garlic, 1 cup of the oil and the pumpkin seeds into a food processor and run for about 30 seconds. Scrape down what is on the sides. Add zest of the lemon, then squeeze in the juice from 1/2, add salt, pepper flakes and nutritional yeast. Run the processor for another 30 seconds or so, and give it a taste. At this point you can add more oil if you like and adjust the seasoning with more salt, lemon or chili pepper flakes.